


The World in a Wine Glass

by Chibihaku



Series: Kalasin Lavellan [5]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, I despise tagging my own work, Pre-Relationship, The Fade, canon divergent backstory, character backstory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-18 02:07:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4688441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chibihaku/pseuds/Chibihaku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of Crestwood, Bull and the Inquisitor find themselves talking over drinks in the Herald's Rest. However, the routine evening is quickly interrupted when the Inquisitor's wine goblet is poisoned, and she becomes trapped in the Fade.</p><p>Sent after her by Solas, Bull finds himself facing each of the Inquisitor's secrets in turn - secrets that she'd much rather a qunari spy never learnt - and he finds himself beginning to question just what, exactly, his place is in the Inquisition, which forces him to question just how dedicated to the qun he truly is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

On the night that the Inquisitor was poisoned, the tavern was much more crowded than usual – probably because the soldiers of the Inquisition were starting to discover where it was.

Bull, of course, had found it quickly and claimed a corner for himself and his men.  He looked around the crowded room with a faint smirk and leisurely spread his legs. As of yet no-one had tried to usurp the throne he had made for himself behind the stairs – in fact, the soldiers of the Inquisition seemed to give him as large a berth as they gave the Vint, all too stuck in their own damn prejudices to try and talk to the ‘dangerous qunari’ and his wicked band of mercenaries.

Not that the boys were with him tonight. The boss had sent them out to aid Cullen and his men in shifting through the rubble of Haven to see if they could find any survivors or answers (and the boss had been damn insistent about the order of the two). Bull, whom she’d taken with her to Crestwood, had found himself suddenly separated from his crew and then beat them back to Skyhold. The Inquisitor hadn’t hidden her mirth at his annoyance; instead she had sent him to the tavern like she was waving away a particularly fussy child. He still wasn’t sure whether he was amused or insulted by the prospect, but the spirits of the bar were making him lean more towards the first.

The tavern was in a celebratory mood, after all. The mission to Crestwood was a success by most standards - Warden found, rift sealed, dead no longer walking around –so it made sense that Skyhold had decided that the time was ripe for a small party.

The surprising thing was more that people kept buying him _drinks._

Oh, no-one so far had really come over to him, but just as his tankard was getting empty again, one of the serving girls would come by with a smile and a wink and point to some person or another around the tavern. Some of the people who were pointed out even grinned at him, waved, or gave an almost-embarrassed duck of the head when he raised his eyebrow at the attention. The implications were… interesting to say the least.

A cheer near the doorway of the tavern shook Bull out of his thoughts, and he looked up in time to see a swell of people rush forward. What they were surrounding, he couldn’t immediately tell, but after a moment the crowd parted to let someone in to the Tavern and Bull nearly laughed at what he saw.

The Inquisitor stood in a circle of admirers, her tapered ears pink at the tips and an embarrassed grin on her face. She was being turned in circles by people clamouring for attention, dragged this way and that by people congratulating and thanking her, and she looked all the world like a cat suddenly surrounded by overeager puppies.

In fairness to her, she did the best she could in greeting each person in turn, smiling, graciously accepting their conversation and their touches, but it wasn’t long before Bull noticed her expression becoming decidedly fixed, her shoulders slumping slightly and how she gave the tiniest of flinches with each touch on her arm.

He stood up.

People scattered.

If he wasn’t so used to the reaction, he would have smirked. As it was, he merely wandered over to the Inquisitor, hands held loose by his side, gait almost an easy shamble. She looked up at him as he approached, and the way people suddenly gave her space made relief and gratitude flicker over her face before she brought her expression firmly to heel. Ever the polite one, she was, torn between thanking him for giving her breathing room and not doing so because it might offend someone else.

“Drink?” He asked her, to save her from having to choose between politeness to him and politeness to the room at large.

Gratitude shone in her eyes once more. “Please,” she said. He didn’t mention the fact she sounded a little desperate, it didn’t seem right.

He shrugged and turned, sauntering back to his chair with her following a little too closely in his wake. When he sat, she took the chair next to him, and smiled an apology at the people who obviously wanted to come towards her, but were too afraid to approach the hulking figure of the resident qunari.

Bull wasn’t so kind. He raised an eyebrow at the people who were staring, and they hastily went back to their drinks, though they still shot the Inquisitor a covetous glance or two.

“Making new friends?” Bull asked the Inquisitor. She looked at him askance.

He chuckled, “You’re important now, you know. You could just tell them to fuck off.”

He reached up a hand and waved over one of the serving girls and told her to get two ales for them when she was close enough to hear. She moved off to get the drinks, giving him a passing flirt and a wink as she left.

He smiled and turned back to the table in time to catch the tail end of a look like resignation fading off the Inquisitor’s face. Before he could do more than register it, however, it had been replaced by an impish, crooked grin.

“Conquest?” The boss laughed, folding one of her legs over the other.

“Allie?” Bull asked, incredulous, “Nah, she’s more into that requisition scout of Harding’s – what’s her name...”

“Wicke?”

“That’s the one.”

The boss leant back in her chair, thoughtful.

After a moment she turned to him, raised a wry eyebrow and said, “That’d almost be cute, if Wicke would be able to stop stammering and blushing for more than two seconds.”

“Nah, Allie’d just kiss her to shut her up.” Bull rested his hands on the table, met the boss’ eyes and grinned. “But I’m not really in the mood for gossip unless there’s drinking involved.” He told her.

Allie chose that moment to place a tankard of ale and a cup of wine on the small table next to his chair. When the Boss moved to pay her, she shook her head. “Freebie, your Worship – someone else picked up the tab on this one.”

The Boss gave Bull a beleaguered look; He met her eyes and waggled his eyebrow. “Telling them to fuck off is still an option.” He said again, this time giving her a grin that was all teeth.

She didn’t even dignify the idea with a response as she sipped at her wine. “What about you?” She asked instead, “Are the people at Skyhold treating you any better?”

Bull shrugged. “They’re buying me drinks,” He said, “Not saying much otherwise, but that’s an arrangement I can live with.”

“That’s… good.”

Something about her pause made Bull stop and look at her. Her expression betrayed nothing, but her thumbs rubbed over one another in her lap, and her ankles suddenly crossed.

“Yeah.” He then threw in a half-lie, “Some have even thanked me for saving their families.” (Well, they had after all - the messages had just been passed along through Cabot.)

If he wasn’t ben hassrath, he would have missed the satisfaction that made it to her lips before she squashed the reaction.

“I was worried that they’d never warm up to you.” She said, and while her tone betrayed nothing, it was already too late.

“You sneaky little…”

She looked at him in what was almost genuine surprise. “What did I do?”

To anyone else, the question would have sounded incredulous, almost shocked, but no-one else would have seen the sharpness that entered her eyes, the way they went from soft to piercing for the space of a heartbeat.

He let his lips curve upward into a razorblade smile, she blinked guilelessly at him.

She wanted to know what he’d seen.

He obliged. “You took the Vint and I to Crestwood,” He began, wondering just how much he should actually say.  Her lips lifted, so he was onto a good start. “And you didn’t bring us simply because you wanted our particular expertise.”

“Though having along a death mage and a living battering ram does have its uses when fighting demons and corpses.” She agreed.

“You wanted _us.”_ He told her, “Us in particular because if the _qunari_ and the _Vint_ saved some of Ferelden’s own, the Inquisition might become more welcoming to us.”

“The thought had crossed my mind.” She admitted, though her eyes were filled with a delighted laughter.

“And then you brought the Seeker to lend the whole thing an air of credibility.” He clapped her on the shoulder; she nearly fell off her chair. “Like I said - _sneaky._ ”

He approved.

He didn’t tell her his sudden new suspicion that she’d sent the Chargers to Haven’s ruins under Cullen’s command in order to probe into whether they could work cohesively with the Inquisition; or that he had a feeling she was testing just how far her control over his boys really ran. No, let her still think she had those secrets, and let her be pleased that she’d nearly snuck one past him.

The qunari would be interested in the run of her mind – something to put into his reports.

“You have a look in your eye like you’re scheming, Bull.”

He shrugged, tilted his head in her direction and smirked. She laughed at him, shook her head and glanced away.

There was a moment of silence between them, as they looked out over the bustling tavern. There was a loose gaggle of guards and soldiers, merchants and servants, all of the lower classes that normally someone like the Inquisitor wouldn’t be seen with. That was another part of her plan, Bull thought, she couldn’t know all of her people but they could think they knew her by seeing her come to the tavern, even if it was just to speak to him. He took a mouthful of ale, watched her as she sipped her wine some more. Her face had settled into an expression that (while still wary) was a lot softer than it had been when she walked in, and her pose contained within it a gentleness that wasn’t entirely a façade, even if she was significantly more cunning and dangerous than she liked to appear.

It did the Inquisition well, her being here – it did her well too, though she was less likely to admit it. Small, quick-witted thing she was, but not used to large groups of people, even for all she curbed her accent into something that sounded more Fereldan, and pretended to know more than she did about humans through a quick mind and a strong sense of intuition.

(And for the record, he knew the accent was affected because he’d _heard_ her after a day’s march and a night’s watch; when her exhaustion had prevented her from smothering her brogue, something of a strange mix between Dalish and Free-Marcher; when she couldn’t quite manage to get her rounded vowels to flatten into something that sounded more… comfortable… for the Inquisition soldiers to hear.)

“Bull?”

He’d been quiet too long.

“I’m not planning anything more than usual.” He said. She frowned slightly but accepted it, taking another sip from her wine glass.

“How are the Chargers going?”

She was fishing for information, but Bull didn’t find that he minded all that much. He settled back into his chair and shrugged, starting to talk. She listened with a smile on her face, asking questions when she could to keep him going as she was prone to do, and he gave her perfectly blunt, dodging answers to most of her inquiries – amicable, funny and not of any real use to her.

“- It has blood grooves, though technically, they’re the fuller –”

As much as he knew it was dangerous, he was starting to enjoy her company more than most. In the short time he’d known her, she’d proven herself capable, dangerous, clever and polite – favouring an approach that was always more than it appeared to be, while simultaneously using any prejudice she found to her advantage. It was subtle and it was in many ways elegant and unpredictable, and at times she had a fire in her that reminded him of a tamassran.

So when she asked him questions, he answered. When she asked to see what he’d seen – well.

No harm in telling some of it.

“No, if you don’t roisin it correctly, the wood loses its suppleness.”

“Yeah, but you could still use it as a bludgeon, maybe break it in two, have some pointy sticks, make a mess...”

“The wood isn’t dense enough, and the break wouldn’t be clean at all, Bull.”

“Well, the only person I spend any time with who has a bow _actually_ has a staff, but try telling her that.”

That was the deal, after all. Information for information. That she’d taken it a different way to what the ben hassrath had assumed she would was an oversight on their end. It was blunt, it worked for them.

It was strangely honest, in its way.

(Oh, they were both _using_ each other, of course they were, but both knew precisely how they were being used.)

“So qunari don’t have sex?”

He rumbled out a chuckle, “Oh, we definitely have sex.”

And the conversation was off again.

She asked him questions and he responded, and the level of his tankard and her goblet slowly dipped, and it wasn’t until her eyelids fluttered and her eyes slid out of focus, brow crinkling in confusion that he realised he hadn’t ordered her a _wine._

“Uh, Boss?”

She blinked up at him, her head weaving back and forth on her neck and she pitched forward off her chair. He swore, moved with a speed that sent nearby patrons scrambling back as he caught her before she could hit the ground. She clung to his arm, hands weak, fingers twitching.

“Boss?” He said again, voice tight with worry.

She looked up at him once more, the tips of her ears drooping, a flush coming forth on her cheeks.

“Bull,” She said, accent thick, sounding so small, so _young_ , “I don’t think I’m drunk.”

She collapsed.

\---

He took her to the newly-built surgery behind the tavern, waving off the worries of the patrons with a hasty laugh and a hint that she’d had one too many. She’d hate him for it when she woke up, but explanations were difficult – she’s been poisoned, no, not by me, yes, I know I’m a qunari, no I would never _hurt her like that –_ so he’d chosen to forego them _._ He was disturbed, suddenly, by what a tiny thing she was. It was no work at all to scoop her into his arms, to cradle her against him as he moved through the dark towards the dim candle-glow in the surgery’s window.

Her face was pale, even with her dark features, though her cheeks remained slightly flushed under the vallaslin, and her body was a small furnace in his arms. Her breath was coming in slow, shallow pants that worried him more than they soothed, and when he put his fingers under her neck to check her pulse, it fluttered fiercely against his fingers.

“Shit, Boss,” He said, more to himself than to her, “Scaring a man half to death here.”

He shifted his grip so he could more comfortably sit her in one arm before he reached up and rapped urgently on the door to the surgery.

The door was pulled open by a harried looking woman whose expression was already halfway into a scowl. “No,” She said, looking at his horns and his eyepatch, “No. I don’t do work on mercenaries for little scrapes from tavern brawls – not at this time of night. You’re not badly hurt because you’re not screaming. Come back in the morning.”

She slammed the door in his face.

He blinked a moment, dumbstruck, then pounded his fist on the door again. “Hey!” He growled, then shouted, “HEY!”

The door opened again, he stopped his fist before it could accidentally hit the surgeon in her face. “I don’t _care,_ ” said the woman, voice an acerbic hiss, “if you were sharpening your knife and cut yourself. I don’t _care_ if you think you might be dying because a tankard hit you when someone threw it. It’s well past midnight and-”

“And the Inquisitor has been poisoned, so you’re damn well letting me in.” He growled, pushing past her.

“You can’t do that!” The woman snapped, pushing towards him. He turned, aware that the Boss’ breath against his arms was too fast and too shallow, and let just a little bit of the anger he was feeling show on his face.

He straightened his shoulders, towered to his full height. “She’s _poisoned._ ” He growled out, “I don’t care what time of night it is, and I don’t care what you think your prerogative is. She could be dying so you’re going to do your _damn job_ and help.”

The surgeon looked up at him, eyes wide, mouth gaping.

The Inquisitor gave a whimper.

The surgeon looked at the bundle in his arms, concern flicking over her face, before she turned to light the candles in the room. When that was done, she went to her instruments and started sorting through them. “Put her on the cot over there.” She said, with a gesture, Bull moved to do as instructed.

He set her down as gently as he could, taking a moment to brush her hair out of her face. She didn’t stir.

The surgeon bustled past him, a lit taper in her hands. “She’s pale.” The woman said, stepping to the bed, “Breathing is frantic but not out of a safe range.” She reached forward and peeled back one of the Inquisitor’s eyelids, holding the lit taper in front of it.

“Pupils dilating normally.” She let the eyelid fall closed and shook the taper out. She moved her hand to the Boss’ forehead, and her other hand to her neck. “Pulse and temperature are fairly normal – slightly elevated, I’ll need my instruments to fully check.” She sighed, and stepped back.

She looked up at Bull, mouth curling in distaste. “Any poison that is particularly nasty and can be made in the mountains would have had a much greater effect by now. Likewise for anything that can stay viable in the cold. Did she complain of odours or flavours before unconsciousness?”

“No.” Bull told her, glancing down at the small form on the cot.

“Nothing else? No fitting? Babbling? Complaining of heat or cold?”

“No.” Bull repeated, “She pitched forward, swayed a bit like she was drunk, then collapsed.”

The surgeon nodded briskly. “Most likely, then, it’s a sleeping draught, though I’d need her drinking vessel to be sure.”

There was a sudden loud, familiar crackle, and for a moment, both the surgeon and Bull found themselves bathed in an eerie green light.

They looked down at the Inquisitor – she whimpered again and green sparks shot up her arm from the mark.

“Get Solas.” Bull hissed at the surgeon, “ _Now._ ”

\---

Some time later, Bull found himself in a world of green fog.

He frowned, looking around. The landscape was twisted and strange, grotesque statues leered at him out of high cliff faces that surrounded the small gully that he found himself in. Strange-coloured, glowing lichen hung off the walls, the ground looked damp and was stained almost brown in places like blood spilled on mud and never quite given the chance to dry. There was a boggy, marshy smell on the air, like rotten things and spoilt eggs, that made him crinkle his nose in disgust. A gnarled tree grew out sideways from the cliff side on his left, skeletal branches reaching for nothing.

There were also floating rocks.

Lots of floating rocks.

“Shit,” He muttered, “If I had to fall asleep, why couldn’t I be dreaming of something _nice_?” He rolled his neck, “The redhead from the kitchens for example?”

“Ah,” Said a voice behind him, “It would seem I have less explaining to do than I imagined.”

Bull turned.

Solas stood behind him, shoulders forward, hands clasped behind his back. The elf had the decency to look mildly embarrassed, but he didn’t baulk or show any signs of surrender when Bull scowled at him.

“I take it this is your fault?”

“The sleep?” Asked the elf, Bull’s scowl deepened. “No,” Solas said, chagrined smile fixed firmly upon his face. “Your coherency and for lack of a better word, _wakefulness_?” He paused, and something flickered across his eyes, “I assisted, but it was minor. You have a remarkably strong will – almost as strong as the Inquisitor’s.”

Realisation came back to Bull with a sudden jerk. “Shit. The Boss. I was –”

“The flaring of the mark is a cause of concern.” Solas hastened to interrupt, “However, you will be of much greater assistance to her within the Fade than without.” He tilted his head and stepped forward. “The mark is flaring because she is under some description of enchantment that only a sleeper can break.”

At times, Bull was not a patient man. “Then break it,” He sneered, “Don’t drag me into your weirdass green, demon-infested _bullshit._ You’re a sleeper, and you’re _here._ ” He left the ‘why the fuck am I?’ unspoken, but from the way Solas flinched, he could tell the elf heard it.

“The explanation is difficult and would be best conducted as we are walking,” Solas said, “The longer we are here, the greater the chance that a demon will convince the Inquisitor to share their power.” He started walking; Bull fell into step beside him. “Imagine, if you will, a demon with power over the fade such as that which the Inquisitor possesses – the results would be catastrophic.”

“Yeah, thanks for that image,” Bull said, trying not to make a face. “But I don’t understand why you need me _._ ”

Solas’ shoulder lifted in half a shrug. “You happened to be the person who was closest. Kalasin is refusing to allow my help, and I believe that another member of the Inquisition might prove to be more successful than myself.”

“What do you mean _refusing_ help?”

Solas’ expression could only be called a smile by the loosest definition. “The Fade, more than many are willing to admit, is a living being – it is shaped by living beings and inherits their idiosyncrasies. The Inquisitor is trapped here until someone comes to her aid, but until that time she is also in turn shaping the Fade about herself in a way which is… quite remarkable.” The elf gestured around them.

Bull frowned, following the other man’s gaze. The rocky, cliff-filled landscape he’d found himself in initially was smoothing itself, ethereal crystals starting to appear amongst stone that was polished almost to a glass-sheen. As they walked further, the formations started taking different shapes, some short and stubby, others tall and lean, but all marked by a similar spindly shape that ended in bunches of crystals, each one flat and thin. The effect became more pronounced the further they moved until the wold about them was lush, dense, almost a –

“Shit,” Bull said.

The Boss had made herself a forest.

“I do not believe it is intentional.” Solas turned back to Bull, gesturing for him to move. Bull did so, but not without looking disbelievingly about himself first. “The power of the Anchor in her hand is more potent than perhaps we had imagined, and as she continues to remain in the Fade, the more pronounced the effects of it will grow.”

“This is fucking creepy, Solas.”

The elf smiled, “Actually, I find it to be rather beautiful.”

The rock treed around them eventually spread to reveal a small glade. It was mostly bare, only a small, sailed caravan standing in the clearing. A half-formed, ghostly beast nosed at the bare rock around it as if it were hunting for grass and as they approached its head came up. It was graceful enough, Bull supposed, even as it had dangerous looking horns that swept back from its deer-like head. It was snowy white and not as slender as Bull would have expected from a halla, strong frame marking it as somewhere between deer and horse even as it was fully neither. It snorted at them as they approached; hoof striking the ground in an obvious threat.

“This is where I encounter difficulty,” Solas told Bull, “The halla refuses to let me pass to the aravel, and Kalasin is within.”

“And you think it’ll let me through?”

Solas raised his eyebrows, hands folding behind his back once more. “It is a hunch,” He said, “One that is born of observation. Allow, at the very least, for me to test the theory and if you cannot get past the beast I shall leave you to your normal night-time exploits.”

Bull scowled, looking at the ghostly halla. There was far too much intelligence in its eyes for him to be comfortable, “And this’ll help her?”

“If all goes to plan.”

He knew, then and there, that he should say no. He shouldn’t put the position the qunari had in jeopardy. Who was she, anyway? An elf with a clever mind and just as much a friend to him as to any other member of the Inquisition. The Seeker, Varric, even the Vint would be able to do this – to _try_ this – just as easily as he could.

_But they aren’t here._

And that was the sticking point. They weren’t there and he was. He could help now, and her mark was flaring up. How long until it started spitting demons into the real world, how long until she broke and gave in to whatever offer a demon gave her?

He grumbled a moment before he ran a hand over his face. “Alright,” He said, “But no promises.”

Solas smiled, a half-mysterious thing that Bull scowled at him for. “Excellent. You must approach the halla. Retreat if it looks about to attack.” He turned his smile onto the beast, and as he did so he couldn’t quite stop the expression from morphing into a grimace, “It is not a trusting creature, but it is noble and honourable.” The halla flicked an ear at the elf.

Bull stepped forward, the creature turned its attention to him.

For a moment, they eyed each other, Bull refusing to let his body tense, the halla appearing to size him up, snorting and pawing at the ground. Some trick of the Fade’s light was making its horns almost appear to shine gold.

The standoff seemed to drag, and then the creature lowered its head.

“Ah.” Said Solas behind him, “Perhaps you should come away-”

The halla stepped aside.

Bull felt his eyebrow rise, even as he moved forward past the creature. It regarded him with an expression a hair shy of scorn but didn’t move to attack him at all.

That is, until he had moved past it and turned back to speak to Solas.

The creature trumpeted, rearing and flailing its hooves at Bull, and he had to duck backwards to avoid being struck. He swore, loudly, the beast fell to all fours, eyes and horns glittering wickedly as it advanced on him, pushing him in the direction of the aravel door.

“It would seem you are being given no choice but to proceed,” The amused tone had returned to Solas’ voice, Bull chanced a glare over the mad creature’s head.

“Fucking elves.” Bull spat with no shortage of vehemence. He fumbled behind him for a way into the aravel that he found himself pressed against. The halla wasn’t advancing on him any further, but it was holding him in place, “With their Fade bullshit and their wannabe horses. ‘Hey, Bull! Do me a favour!’ ‘I don’t know, Solas, seems pretty dangerous.’ ‘It’ll be fine.’”

“I am never that chipper.” If anything, Solas’ amusement had increased.

“Asshole.” Bull said, as his hands finally found a latch behind him. The door to the aravel swung open, and he stepped backwards into it. The halla snorted in an obvious threat.

“She better be in here.” Was all Bull said as he turned and walked into the darkness behind him.

The only answer he got was the sound of a lock sliding home.

He grumbled to himself as he set off into the darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: Animal death, child abuse.

Bull eventually took a step that changed the world around him with a speed that bordered on dizzying. One step, he was in blackness, and the next he was standing dumbfounded on a cobbled, busy street. The air slammed out of his lungs with shock as he staggered, fought a brief bout of vertigo and finally managed to take stock of his surroundings.

The town was like any other port that Bull had encountered – noisy and smelling slightly of fish and mildew, with wharf houses made of bleached wood and crumbling coral blocks. There was salt on the air when he breathed it in, and the cry of gulls and sailors on the wind.

Around him, people moved as blurs of colour and shape that were strangely mercurial in their nature. Try as he would, he couldn’t manage to get one into focus - they hovered always in his peripheral vision and blind spot, but never happened to be directly where his eye landed. The buildings, when he looked, were strange caricatures of what buildings should be – some were fat, squat, desolated things, while others stood far too tall and thin; painted in bright, garish colours that would have never withstood the seasons. Some stood in sharp focus, cornices and ivy and windowsills, and some were bleached and halfway gone, details blurred into nothing.

It was a world remembered by someone, Bull realised, and not a town proper.

It was also damn disconcerting.

“Solas damn well _owes_ me for this.” Bull said, as he picked a direction and started to walk.

His path took him down towards the sea – shouts and naval whistles started to join the cacophony, but there was no rhyme or reason to the calls. One moment, a ship whistle would sound a cast-off, and then not a second later the same one would sound a docking. He passed into a well-defined, narrow alley and paused to catch his breath and stop his head from spinning in the confusion. This world had no order, no rules to follow and it was setting his teeth on edge.

He had to find the Boss in _this_? How the hell was he supposed to do that?

How the Hell was he supposed to _get out_?

A sound like a cat’s meow put through a saw-mill rumbled up at him from near his feet.

He looked down.

A ginger tomcat with a single white patch on its side looked mournfully up at him, before it wended its way through his legs with a low purr (a sound nearly as awful as its meow.) It was an ugly thing, all squat, bandy legs on a barrel of a body that was a patchwork of missing hair and thick, shiny scarring. It flicked the ragged stump of an ear at him, still purring, and stared at him from rheumy eyes set into a squashed sort of face. Its tail stood proud still, but it was a far thing from straight, permanent kinks and bends in it told of multiple breaks.

“I don’t have any food,” Bull told it.

It purred at him even louder than before.

He raised his eyebrow.

It gave another horrible, shuddering meow.

“Sorry,” He told it, “But there’s only one kitten I like and she’s not you.”

He stepped over it. It followed him, mewling, as he left the alley. He sighed and ignored it.

The alley mouth was set into the wall of a cacophonous marketplace, stalls spilling almost to the edge of a bustling port. The sky above was heavy with a storm about to break, and the blurred, undefined crowd about him parted like waves as he walked through them. Ozone was strong on the air, and a glance at the water showed the swell was capped with the beginnings of white. A wind picked at the material of his pants and billowed around him, and still the cat trotted at his feet, a prideful bounce in its steps.

There was a sudden shout, a crash and a cry of “THIEF!”

And then there was a sound that always pissed Bull off – a yelp, high pitched and small, the sort of sound that only a distressed child could make. He had started in the direction of the sound before he’d even realised he was moving, heading towards a stall with a bright red, canvas overhang. He reached the stall just as the owner was swinging his hand high again to bring it down on a small, red-headed child, who was struggling to get out of the vice-grip he had around her left forearm.

Bull didn’t think – he lunged forward and grabs the man’s arm, physically putting himself between him and his intended victim. The kid broke free with a whimper and threw themselves at Bull’s leg. Bull could feel the kid trembling as they clutched onto him.

“Now _what_ ” He said, pulling himself out of his habitual slouch and up to his full height, “Is going on here?”

The man, a fruit seller going by the contents of his stall, bristled.

(It wasn’t the reaction Bull would have chosen, but stupid people were always trying to rid the world of themselves.)

“Now see here!” The fruit seller snapped, “The girl is a thief and it’s my choice to punish her actions as I see fit!”

Bull hoisted them man’s arm up a little higher and leant towards him. “And what,” He snarled, “Was she supposed to be _stealing_?”

The child wrapped around his legs clung to him a little tighter. The stall-holder tried to pull his arm out of Bull’s grip, Bull refused to let him go. He felt his expression fall into something cruel, “’Cos I gotta say, I gave her a coin to get me some apples, and if she didn’t give it to you yet, I’ve a word or two for her _myself._ ” As he was speaking, he lowered the hand not holding the man and tapped on the girl’s arm with a coin, deliberately out of the man’s line of sight. He felt a small hand close around his fingers, tugging the coin away from him.

Part of him expected the kid to bolt then and there, and he was surprised when a childish, but familiar, voice piped up from near his hip.

“I was gonna pay him, I swear‘n Andraste. He didn’ give me a _chance._ ”

Oh, the Boss had been a good liar even when she was young, it seemed. Had the perfect petulant whine down and _everything._

She slipped out from behind Bull, a copper coin gleaming in the palm of a dirty hand.

Bull let go of the man’s arm. He staggered back, rubbing at his wrist.

“Think you owe her something of an apology, don’t you?”

The man scowled, but didn’t seem prepared to argue with an angry qunari, hastily packing apples into a cloth that he tied with a deft flick of his wrist. “No charge.” He said, bitterly, as he handed the apples over.

“Good.”

Something broke around them, then, a heat-haze that Bull only became aware of because it disappeared. The sounds of the marketplace seemed to become louder once more; the salt on the air hidden for a moment under a smell like sulphur, then back stronger than ever.

Bull passed the apples down to the Boss, moving away from the cart to a fountain in the centre of the square. There was a distant, muffled crack of thunder – when the storm broke, it was going to be a bad one.

Half-expecting the girl to run, Bull sat on the edge of the fountain and was surprised when she sat beside him. He raised an eyebrow in question; she shrugged before turning her attention to the cloth. She undid the tie and pulled out a bright green apple, taking a bite. Juice dribbled down her chin.

The kid’s face was a mess. Both her eyes were blackened and her nose was swollen angry red and bent at an awkward angle. He didn’t comment on it, nor on the overly skinny state of her arms, or the raggedness of the servant’s cast-downs that she wore.

“You know,” He said instead, “I gave you a _silver_ piece, not a copper.”

She shrugged and bit into the apple again, chewing and swallowing thoughtfully. When her mouth was empty, she said, “It was very generous of you to do that. You must be a very kind man to give such charity to a stranger.”

He frowned at her; she returned his incredulous look with a bland stare.

He turned away from her and chuckled.

“Most expensive damn apples I’ve ever bought.”

She grinned at him, gap-toothed and crooked.

“I’m Nataya,” She said, sticking out her hand.

He stared at her for a moment.

The girl was certainly the Inquisitor in miniature that he’d just helped – hazel eyed, red haired and with freckles over every patch of dark sin he could see, she couldn’t possibly be anyone else – but the Inquisitor’s name _wasn’t_ Nataya.

He didn’t frown; he caught her hand and shook it once, searching for her reaction when he said, “Hissrad.”

She didn’t give him one – her attention had been grabbed by a sawdust mewl that came from near his feet. She squealed, reaching down and scooping up the cat that moved about Bull’s legs.

“Buttons!”

_Because the ugly ass cat belongs to her. Of course it does._

And apparently, the child had looked at the cat and decided somewhere in that child’s brain of hers that _Buttons_ was the best name for it.

“You saved my life, and you found Buttons!” She stared up at him like she couldn’t quite believe he was fully real, “You’re the _best_ , Hissrad!”

For some reason, that name coming out of her made him flinch, though he wasn’t quite sure why. He smiled at her and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well…” He said, at a sudden loss for words from such easy, honest praise, “You know how it is.”

She grinned at him, all skinny limbs and dirt, one arm full of purring tomcat, the other hand clutched around –

“You do need to keep a better watch of your coin purse, though.” She waggled her fingers at him, spun away and ran as fast as her legs could carry her, giggling maniacally.

“HEY!”

He gave chase.

\---

He followed her through a series of twisting and turning back alleys, never quite losing her but never catching her either. Eventually, she got ahead of him, darting into a building that was more hovel than house. He cautiously stepped towards it, peering at the open door with some trepidation.

The sudden angry shout from inside was enough to put him into action.

“You said _four silvers!_ ” A woman’s voice rose in an agitated shriek as he stepped into the house.

“That was before the nose was broken,” A male, lightly accented voice replied, “Now the price I am willing to pay has dropped to two.”

Bull followed the voices down a dirty hallway to a small, dark room. The door to this room was open as well, and he stepped through it as quietly as he could. No-one looked at him, which was strange enough by itself – he usually commanded attention through sheer size alone, but he had the feeling he could have set off a container of gatlock, and the people in the room wouldn’t have known about it.

For a moment, he thought he saw the Inquisitor – a small elf stood in the room, hands on her hips, short but lanky and covered in freckles – but when he looked at her closely, he realised her eyes were the wrong colour, her hair was a russet brown and not a true red.

Also, the Inquisitor had never looked that angry in all the time he’d known her.

“You’re _robbing_ me!”

“You are trying to sell me broken goods.” The man the elf was talking to was tall and robed in Tevinter fashion about two decades out of date. He was sneering, that much Bull could see, though he had a hood pulled down low over half his face.

Bull stepped forward and cleared his throat. Neither person turned towards him – in fact, neither reacted as if they had heard him at all, and he had the sudden suspicion it was because he wasn’t really there.

He grumbled in a low voice to himself about the whole situation, and no-one even looked annoyed by the noise he was making.

“The child’s value is much reduced if she is physically imperfect.” The Vint said, voice cold, “If you wish for me to buy her at all, you will refrain from injuring her further until my agent comes to receive her from you.”

“You said _four_.” The elf insisted in a growl.

Bull heard a small whimper.

It was the noise of a child too frightened to cry, and it set Bull’s temper flaring. Looking about, he saw the source of the noise, a red headed bundle of rags in the corner, clinging tightly to a ginger-furred cat.

The Vint looked towards the corner, his body reeking of nonchalance, “Wild looking brat like that, I should only pay you one.”

Bull punched him – his hand sunk through the man like the man wasn’t even there.

The man sniffed and stepped towards the elven woman, “Two silvers. If she is damaged further, nothing. My agent will be by tonight to gather her.”

He looked once more about the hovel, raised his hand to his face in disgust and walked out the door – straight through Bull.

Bull shuddered, phantom sensation clawing its way through him.

The woman wheeled on the child, anger snapping in her eyes.

“Mamae,” The girl whimpered, a far cry from the bold and clever thing Bull had met in the markets, “Mamae, I’ll be good. Please don’t be angry, please.”

Bull glared at the woman. He had never wanted to kill someone more in his life, and he’d never been so damn impotent.

“Little _shit!_ ” The woman snarled, hand coming up angrily to strike the child.

The girl ( _The Boss. This is the_ Boss _and she never told you about this. It happened to her and you can’t stop it happening now, Bull._ ) raised her arms and cringed backwards against the wall, the cat fell out of her arms.

And the brave, _stupid_ creature stood in front of its friend, hissing and spitting at her mother.

The woman let out a frustrated shriek and ran both hands through her hair. She turned; Bull was halfway through a sigh of relief when he caught the twisted expression on her face.

Quick as lightning, the woman spun back, foot flying out and catching the cat under its stomach. The animal was thrown across the small room and stuck the wall with a sickening ‘crunch’ before it fell to the ground in a boneless pile.

Instantly, the room went silent, both mother and girl looking at the dead cat.

“…Buttons?”

Oh, Bull would have given anything not to have heard the tremble in the kid’s voice.

“BUTTONS!” The girl raced forward, her mother collapsing to her knees.

“You killed him! You _killed him!_ ” The boss was sobbing over the cat in only the way a child could. Loud, snotty sobs that to hurt her with her nose busted the way it was.

“Mamae didn’t mean to.” Her mother said, sounding broken, “Come here, my little love, I didn’t mean to.” She stretched out her arms towards her daughter, face contorted into an almost believable facsimile of misery, “I didn’t mean to, you got Mamae angry and she couldn’t think.”

But the child had scooped up the dead cat and had staggered backwards towards the door. “No.” She said, shaking her head for emphasis, still hiccoughing wildly around sobs, “ _No!_ ”

She bolted out of the house.

Her mother let out a noise of frustrated despair, before she collapsed fully to the ground, looking distraught and broken. “Two silvers.” She muttered as Bull stalked past her after the child.

“ _Two silvers._ ”

\---

The storm had broken while Bull was in the house.

He made his way back to the marketplace through a freezing rain that soaked him through in seconds. There was a difference on the air that wasn’t to do with the weather, as well – all of the faded, half-formed people were gone, the streets eerily still and silent aside from the roar of rain and wind.

Even through the cold, though, there was a shimmer like heat haze hovering on the air, and as Bull moved, the stink of rotten eggs and hot iron filled his nose.

“Because that’s not creepy at all.” Bull grumbled to himself as he pushed through the storm. He was suddenly sharply aware that his dreaming self didn’t have a sword.

“Nataya?” He called, working past the way the name felt wrong in his mouth, “Nataya!” He moved past stalls that had no holders, stock being blasted by rainwater and still piled high. An apple fell off a cart and rolled past his feet, caught by the wind. Canvas came loose from its ties, flapping with noises like whip cracks.

 _It’s her dream, not yours._ Bull thought as he fought against the wind to move father into the market, _All roads lead to the qun. She’ll be at the centre - if you walk you should be able to find her._

He frowned to himself, thinking that as much as the reasoning sounded like bullshit, he didn’t exactly have any other ideas to work with.

A quiet sobbing cut over the storm, somehow louder than even the howling wind managed to be, for all it sounded like the person making the noise was trying to muffle the sound. He moved towards it, stepping around a corner and seeing the fountain where they’d been before. The Boss was curled into a small ball at the base of the fountain, shaking with the effort to hold in her tears and still hiccoughing every so often.

She wasn’t alone.

The rage demon that was crouched over her was bigger than average, and it was running covetous hands down her back. The heat coming off it was immense; it choked the air and made it hard to breathe as Bull approached.

It was where the sulphur stink was coming from and the smell caught at the back of Bull’s throat and nearly sent him coughing.

 _Poor child._ It cooed in a voice like molten rock, _Poor, sweet child._

“Hey! Get away from her!”

Bull reached behind himself for his great sword and his hand clenched around empty air. The rage demon slowly turned from the crying child to regard him with eyes like glowing embers.

 _Who are you?_ It asked, voice almost comically confused.

Bull let out a low, rumbling growl, ignoring the small thrill of old terror that made itself known deep in his gut. Now wasn’t the time – he had to be a small child’s knight in shining armour, after all.

“Me?” He said, stepping forward through the rain, watching it hiss and spit into steam where it struck the demon, “I’m no-one. Just a friend of the little princess there.”

The demon laughed – it sounded like a rock fall. _Friend?_ It asked, looking down at the child who was still curled into a tight ball, _Her mother killed her only friend in the world._

The girl whimpered, the noise speared Bull straight in the chest.

 _No matter._ Said the demon, stooping low again. It threaded it’s hand through the girl’s hair, leaving ashy streaks wherever it touched her, _I can make the pain go away. Anger hurts less, my poor child. Rage gives you the strength to take your revenge._

“Then what?” Bull asked the demon, stepping forward again. The demon bristled, hand tightening in the girl’s hair.

It was a weakness, Bull pounced on it. “Then what?” He demanded again, with more vehemency, “You kill your mother – then what?”

_She will have strength so that no-one ever hurts her again._

She. The demon had stopped talking to Kal. Good.

“Then what?” Bull asked for a third time.

The child’s cries had stopped, but the demon hadn’t noticed.

Bull took another step towards the creature, “Then what?” This time, his tone was calmer, more thoughtful “So she’s strong, she gets revenge. No-one ever hurts her again. Sounds good – damn tempting even.”

The child’s arms stiffened, the rage demon turned towards Bull.

“The cat never comes back to life, though.”

Behind the demon, the girl looked up, eyes red-ringed and glassy with unshed tears. Bull felt his face settle into a grim line, aware of rain dripping off his eyepatch and horns.

“No matter what you do, no matter what deals you make,” He said, fighting himself as all the faces he couldn’t save in Seheron kept threatening to swim to the forefront of his mind, “The dead don’t come back, Kid.”

He’d fought and drank and fucked his way through enough cities to know that much.

The rage demon roared at him, seizing his attention away from the girl as it reared up, fireball forming in its hands.

“LEAVE HIM ALONE!”

Both Bull and the demon turned as the girl got to her feet, face set with fear and sorrow, drenched to the bone, hair made dark and plastered to her face by the rain. “Leave him alone,” She said again, green sparks shooting up her arm. She held her arm out, snarling and spitting – Bull’s pint-size saviour, covered in bruises, soaking wet and with a broken nose.

“He’s my _friend_ ,” She spat, a green flare of light punctuating the last word, “ _He’s my friend!_ ”

Green light exploded from her hand, engulfing the demon. It screamed with the sound of a landslide, as the rift slammed closed around it, and suddenly it was gone.

Bull stared at the spot where it had been, it’s scream still ringing in his ears, nothing remaining to show it had even been there at all. He looked at the girl, she was panting slightly, but her face was set with a familiar determination.

“Remind me not to piss you off,” Bull said.

She stiffened, turning to face him. There was a sudden wariness in her eyes like an animal that had just found itself caged.

Bull grinned. He had a feeling it wasn’t a nice expression. “Welcome back, _Boss._ ”

She flinched at the emphasis on her nickname, but tucked whatever expression she wanted to make behind a wall of forced indifference.

“Bull,” She said, an undercurrent of annoyance in her voice, “What’s going on?”

Bull sat down on the lip of the fountain and sighed.

“It’s a long story.”

\---

One explanation later, and the Inquisitor was looking annoyed and resigned, a strange expression to see on the face of a six year old.

“And did Solas mention anything about _how_ you’re supposed to get me out of the Fade?”

Bull paused. Thought back. Swore.

“That very much sounded like a no.”

“The way he phrased it, it kinda seemed like you’d just be sitting in the aravel waiting for me to get you out.” He told her, mentally kicking himself for not asking more questions of the elven mage.

The Inquisitor sighed and pushed herself off the fountain edge to the ground. Bull found himself grinning at the little skipping step she had to take to straighten out after the near-leap, but quickly smothered the expression at her glare.

“I think that killing the demon helped.” The Inquisitor said, “I don’t feel as… hazy… as I was.” She sighed and looked down at her hand where the anchor should have been. “Maybe that’s all we have to do? Now we just walk back out?”

“Not gonna lie, that sounds a little too easy.”

“Let me be hopeful, Bull.”

Bull held up his hands in surrender. “It’s also the only plan we’ve got, so I say we try it.” He stood up as well and looked down at her. “We walk out of – of –” He frowned and looked at the empty market square, where the sun was starting to shine and catch on the puddles left by the rain.

“Wycome.” The Boss said, looking at the ground, “We’re in Wycome.” She held up a hand. “I don’t want to talk about it, no.”

Suddenly, Bull found himself annoyed. “Alright, _Nataya,_ ” (The Boss flinched) “We find our way out of Wycome and back to Solas and see if he can’t fix this fuckup.

The boss nodded.

Bull stared her down a moment more, but she said nothing and didn’t even look his way. Eventually, he sighed and started walking back towards the alleyway that he had come from.

“I _am_ dalish,” The Boss said behind him.

“Never said you weren’t.”

“You were thinking it quite loudly.”

Bull let out a bark of surprised laughter, and turned back to face the Inquisitor. She was looking at him with a slightly sheepish smile. “I was what?”

“Thinking it.” The Boss confirmed, “Loudly.” She fell into step next to him and fell quiet once more. Bull turned back towards the alleyway and held his tongue.

If the Boss wanted to speak about this, she would.

“I wasn’t born dalish.” She said, after a pause, “But that doesn’t mean I’m _not_ dalish.”

Bull said nothing.

The boss sighed. “Creators. You’re the last person I wanted knowing all this.” She made a half-hearted gesture at their surrounds with her hand, “I had even managed to keep it from Leliana.”

“You think I can’t keep a secret?” Bull asked.

“You’re a _spy_ , Bull.”

“Shouldn’t that be proof that I can keep a secret?”

She laughed, it sounded bitter. “ _I’m_ a spy, Bull.”

He rolled his shoulders in a shrug. “Fair call.”

They walked in silence a moment more, the streets remained empty and half-remembered.

“I ran away.” She said at last.

“You don’t need to tell me about it.” He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. It didn’t seem fair that someone could be so impossibly small – Bull thought he had never been that small in his life.

She waved a dismissive hand at him. “If the qunari are going to know about this, they may as well know everything.” She took a few more steps, looking around. “Mamae, she – she gave me this.” She gestured towards her nose, and the same murderous urge that had pushed up in Bull before threatened him again. “Then, she killed Buttons.”

“That’s a terrible name for a cat.” Bull said, still trying to get a hold of his anger.

She gave a flat ‘hah’ of a laugh. “Says the man who called himself Iron Bull.”

“ _The_ Iron Bull.”

“The Iron Bull.” She corrected herself, glancing up at him with a weak smile. Some of the stiffness had started to leave her shoulders. She turned to face forwards. “I ran away.”

Bull said nothing. This was an old wound, yes, but it was still one that needed lancing.

He hadn’t told her, of course, but the qunari had looked into her past and been completely baffled by what they’d found. Dalish clans tended to be secretive at best, but Lavellan was worse than most when it came to hiding their secrets. The clan had been unusual in that it simultaneously had a large amount of contact with the human cities near it, and nearly none at all. All contact was restricted to only a single woman for many years who did all of the trading and communication for the clan. Then, suddenly, she’d been joined by a young apprentice one year, the same apprentice who had been sent to the Temple of Sacred Ashes.

Their Spy.

“I ran into one of the members of Clan Lavellan by complete accident.” The Boss said, cutting through Bull’s thoughts, “Well, more accurately, I saw her by accident, followed her and stowed away in her aravel.”

“How’d you manage that?”

The Boss laughed, “She asked me the same question. Her halla was supposed to be guarding the door while she was away and I walked right past him. He let me walk past him.” She shook her head, “She found me a day later and twenty miles down the road.”

“I’m surprised she didn’t take you back to Wycome.”

“She wanted to, but her halla wouldn’t turn for her, and eventually my begging won her over.” The Boss scuffed the ground with a bare foot. “I lied to her. I said I was an orphan. I don’t think she believed me, but…” She gave a half-hearted wave at her face like it explained things.

It did.

“She asked me what my name was, and she told me if I was going to make one up, it needed to be good.”

Bull smirked, “She sounds like my kind of person.”

The Boss rolled her eyes. “I said the only Elvhen word I knew.” She reached up a finger and tapped her cheekbone, “Vallaslin.”

Bull blinked, “That’s not your name either.” He pointed out.

She ducked her head, Bull got the distinct impression she was hiding a sheepish smile “I was only _six_ , Bull.” She said, and there was definite sheepishness in her voice, “You can’t blame me for saying the word wrong.”

Bull laughed, a large, bellowing sound that made her smile in earnest when she looked up at him.

“Kalasin.” He said, when he caught his breath, “ _That’s_ where Kalasin comes from?”

She bit her lip and nodded.

He started laughing again.

Eventually, she joined in, helpless and hopeless, and he put his hand on her back as they walked, even though she was still so small. “And now you’re Kal.” He said, when his amusement was back under control.

“Now I’m Kal.” She agreed. “Something to put in your letters back home, I suppose.”

And just like that, the good mood was broken.

“I – ” Bull said, suddenly uncomfortable in a way he couldn’t explain, “Look – it’s not – ”

“Spy.” Kalasin said, with a small, sad expression, “I like you, Bull, but I haven’t forgotten.”

“Yeah.” Bull said, taking his hand off her back and rubbing the back of his neck. It was twice she’d surprised him now, in the space of one conversation, and it left something uneasy in his gut. “Let’s just keep walking.”

“How far away do you think – ”

She suddenly stopped talking, and he looked down to see what had caught her attention.

She was gone.

“Boss?” He said, looking down at the empty spot where she’d been with disbelief, “Kalasin?”

He looked around him at empty streets that were rapidly fading into blackness and swore violently.

“I knew that was too damn easy.”


	3. Chapter 3

Bull wasn’t sure how far he’d walked through the inky world that had surrounded him, all he knew was that he was tired, hotly impatient and more than a little unnerved (if he was being perfectly honest.)

The texture of the ground below him was vague, not hard nor soft, with the smallest amount of give to it before it became firm like wet beach sand. The air he was breathing was cold, but not frigid, and he could see, smell and hear absolutely nothing else about his surroundings. At some point, he’d started muttering to himself in a long stream of curses that could put even the best sailor to shame, but it still didn’t help improve his mood.

And then, suddenly, there was a light.

A glow, small at first, but growing larger as he walked towards it, which slowly resolved itself into a lantern hanging at the edge of a village gate, beyond which he could see a dirt path running past a hitching post and a sturdy brick building with a thatched roof. As he moved along the side of the fence, other buildings came into half-focus, more shadows like the buildings he had seen before, nowhere near as sharply in contrast as the path and the fence to his right.

“At least it’s easy enough to work out where I’ve got to go.” Bull muttered to himself as he passed through the building’s gate. A sign swung in a breeze Bull couldn’t feel, announcing that the place he had come to was called the ‘King’s Head’.

“And it’s not even a very  _ original _ tavern that I need to go to. That’s great. Best damn thing I’ve ever seen!” Bull placed his hand on the door to enter, “Fucking Fade bullshit. Solas can take it and shove it up his damn elf ass.”

“Well, that really doesn’t sound all that pleasant, if you ask me.”

Bull was too well-trained to jump, but his muscles did tense slightly as he turned to greet the unexpected voice.

Sitting on the fence where no-one had been just a moment before when he passed was the Inquisitor, but she was definitely not as he knew her. Her legs were swinging idly as she looked at him with an expression that was part mild interest and part open curiosity. She was dressed in what Bull belatedly realised must have been dalish clothing, made of a soft suede of a dark, dappled green, it would have been easy enough for her to move in and also give her the ability to blend into a forest’s surroundings almost seamlessly. It was different to the whites and greens she wore as Inquisitor, but it still somehow fitted her, even with it’s impractical neckline and fitting cut. She wore a bow guard along one arm, and a finely woven bracelet was wrapped twice around the other, a flash of red on her otherwise bare and freckled arms.

Speaking of things that were bare, the Inquisitor’s feet, too, were unshod and unadorned, finely-boned and clean.

But moreso than her uncommon clothing, Bull was more thrown by the elf’s hair. The Inquisitor’s hair was chopped short, uneven and messy, with a braid falling past one ear and an undercut that she insisted stopped it from getting in her way. The elf in front of Bull, however, had hair that fell down past her waist in a long, trailing braid, well-cared for and with a pale yellow ribbon woven into it that shone out against the deep, rich red.

“And now you’re staring.”

Bull blinked, and disassembled easily. “Beats looking at a man like he’s a puzzle to solve.”

She nimbly slid off the fence and tilted her head slightly, looking all the while like a cat investigating a new toy. Her eyes were bright and piercing, the flickering glow from the lantern making them shine with amber and honey motes. “Who’s Solas?”

_ There goes the ‘she might know who I am’ theory. _

“Friend of mine,” Bull said, “Giant asshole.”

“Strange thing to say about a friend.”

“Yeah, well, it’s also the nicest damn thing I can say about him right now, so let’s leave it at that.”

She laughed - it was bright as bells and freer than any sound Bull could remember her making since he’d known her. “You know,” She said, when the laughter died away, “If you’re looking for someone, you should head into the tavern you’re blocking the doorway to. Near everyone will be inside at this time of night.”

“What makes you think I’m looking for someone?”

She shrugged, hands coming up to play with the end of her braid. “You seemed like you were, a little upset about it too, if I’m honest.”

Bull was a little bit impressed. He’d known from day one that the Inquisitor was a good read of people, but hadn’t realised how accurate she could be. She played her cards close to her chest and while he was a better read of her than most, she could still keep the extent of most of her emotions from him - a task that many couldn’t complete.

And he was irritated, of course he was, but he hadn’t been aware that she could see through his disassembling that much.

She slipped off the fence and stepped towards him, and Bull felt his eyebrow raise higher. There was a definite slink in her step, something predatory and almost  _ hungry _ that he had never seen in her before. She deliberately bit her bottom lip, (Bull felt his eyebrow rise) then opened her mouth to speak - just as there was a crash from the tavern behind them.

She startled and looked around Bull, even as he half-turned so that he could see what was going on.

The door flung open, and a slight elf was thrown bodily out of it, landing with a thud in front of them. He swore violently and staggered to his feet, brushing the dust off his leather armour as he did so. He sneered at the laughter booming out of the tavern door, before his hands balled into fists and he started back towards the opening.

“ _ Revas! _ ” The Boss snapped, striding forward past Bull, almost vibrating in fury, “What did you  _ do _ ?”

“ _ I _ -” Snarled the strange elf, whirring on the other, “-did nothing! The  _ shemlen _ in that bar, however - “

“The humans in the inn where we need to find lodging so I am not sleeping out in a wolf-filled forest for another night, you mean?” The Inquisitor interrupted, hands folded across her chest.

The other elf spluttered slightly, then scowled, turning his face away from her and noticing Bull for the first time.

Bull met the levelling gaze that the elf sent him with his own, taking the other man in at a glance. He was tall, for an elf, with broad shoulders and dark hair that was perhaps a bit too long to be practical and a little too short to be tied back. He had piercing green eyes and a face that’d be attractive if it wasn’t set into a sneer. His gaze flicked between Bull and the Boss for an instant, something possessive and bordering on jealousy entering his eyes, and with a last piercing look at Bull, he turned contemptuously back to the Boss.

“Of course you would want to sleep in an inn, Alienage,” He spat at her. He moved, probably in what he thought was an indiscreet manner, to put his body between Bull and the Boss.

_ For someone so tiny, it must have been hard to decide I was beneath him. _ Bull thought as he folded his hands across his chest, not even bothering to comment on the other man’s posturing.

“Nah, she’s got nothing to do with it,” He said instead, “She’s hired me to help and I’m a bit more picky about where I sleep.”

Revas gave him a more appraising look, before turning back to the other elf, “Alienage, explain.”

The Inquisitor didn’t miss a beat, slipping into the story like a friend’s bed. “We need  _ help _ , Revas, finding this den and taking it out before the wolves take any more of our young ones. Big, scary qunari? Nice to have a shield in front of the much more breakable elves.”

“And while you’re paying well enough,” Bull added with a shrug, “I still want to sleep inside.”

Revas sneered at him again, before he looked towards the other elf. “Fine, Alienage, if you think you can get them to listen to you without it ending up like last time - “

“Oh,  _ last _ time? Last time when you stepped into a shemlen village and gave four people offense without even saying hello?”

“Um - “ Tried Bull, feeling a little awkward. He was ignored.

“Last time,” Revas sneered, “When I caught you -“

“Doing my job.” There was a resigned sigh behind the Boss’ words that made it sound like she and the other elf had had this -

“-In a shemlen’s lap -”

_ Lover’s tiff. _ Said a voice in Bull’s head.

“-Doing my job.”

\-  _ argument _ before.

“ - Cooing about what a  _ strong man he was _ while you -”

“-Did. My. Job.”

“- Ferreted through his pockets for loose change and - “

“Uh,” Interrupted Bull, “Do you want me to leave?”

“No!” The Boss snapped (actually  _ snapped _ ) just as her companion said “”Yes!”

“No.” Said the Boss again in a slightly calmer tone, turning to Bull and putting a hand to her forehead. “No,” She repeated, “Because if you leave I may be forced to  _ stab _ Revas and it would be a shame to rob the clan of both it’s Second and the Keeper’s son, no matter how personally gratifying the action would be.”

Revas merely scowled in response to this statement.

“In that case,” Bull said, “Can we move this shit inside so that you can tell me what the hell I’m helping you with some time in the near future?”

“If they’ll let Revas back in, I’ll even buy you a drink while we talk.” The Boss said, punctuating the sentence with a nod. She turned and led the way, the two men falling into step behind her.

\---

It turned out that it actually took very little to turn the grumblings and dark looks of the tavern patrons into something more hospitable - the price was actually only about 5 silver pieces and a round for the bar (the first was paid by the Boss, the second was Bull erring on the side of caution) and as the cost for a room was only mildly outrageous and not downright robbery, they didn’t bother to haggle.

However, it didn’t take long for Revas’ perpetual foul mood and frequent use of some variation of the word  _ shemlen _ to start earning them some dark looks and so, deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, the three travellers retired to their room. Once behind closed doors, Revas threw himself down on one of the straw-lined cots and started muttering angrily to himself - an action the Boss seemed fully inclined to ignore.

“You must be wondering,” She said to Bull, “What this is all about.”

Bull shrugged and sat down on the second cot, watching his horns on the low ceilings. “I figured it’d come out in good time, once your boyfriend was done being an ass.”

The Boss sighed, “He’s not my boyfriend,” She said in a weary tone, like it was something she had said many times before.

“He’s very… Protective.” Bull hedged, with a raised eyebrow in the other elf’s direction. Revas merely scowled and went back to pretending not to listen.

“And this is entirely not your business.” Bull looked around sharply at the Boss. She was smiling when he looked at her, a quirky little razor-edged thing that was as playful as it was a warning.

Bull tilted his head and echoed the smile with a smirk, “Fair call. Not asking any more questions about it.”

“That’s very polite of you.”

Revas made a rude noise that Bull ignored.

“So what do you need help with, anyway?” He asked instead.

The Boss’ face pulled into a tight frown. She stepped over to the small window in the room, the flickering lamplight meant that Bull could just make out her reflection as she lifted her hand to the end of her braid and started tugging at it in a way that signified it was a tell.

“There’s something in the forest,” She said, quietly, “And ever since we came here, it’s been stalking the clan.”

Bull frowned and met the eyes of her reflection.

“It takes children,” Revas said, “the sick, the elderly. It leaves no tracks for us to find, comes at night and comes right into the centre of camp. We don’t know what it is.”

“At first we thought it might be some skilled humans, but they leave tracks and they don’t - ” the Boss’ breath hitched.

“Don’t what?” Bull prompted when it became obvious she wasn’t going to continue.

“We found one of the children,” Revas said, flatly, “She had been torn apart.”

“Shit.” Bull said, then again, “ _ Shit. _ ”

“That about sums it up, yeah.”

Bull stood and walked over to where the Boss was standing, gently resting his hand on her shoulder. She turned and gave him a small smile, before turning back towards the window.

Revas, however, saw the action and snarled, exploding off the bed. “I’m going to get some air,” He said waspishly, “Don’t bother calling me unless it’s important, Alienage.”

The Boss started and turned, “Revas, what - ”

The other elf, however, was already halfway out of the door of the room, slamming it behind him with a thud that shook dust down from the rafters.

Bull stared after him. “No offense,” He said, after a moment, “But your not-boyfriend is kind of a dick.”

This surprised a laugh out of the Boss. “That would be why he’s my not-boyfriend.” She agreed, “That and that he doesn’t make me laugh.”

“Can’t have that in a relationship.”

“An absolutely punishable crime.” She said, smiling weakly up at Bull. It was a strained expression and probably a cover of her true emotions, but Bull decided he would take it.

“We should probably go after him before he gets himself killed, though,” Bull said.

“Do we really have to?” The Boss asked, but she was already on her way towards the door she gave him a lopsided grin over her shoulder before she exited, leaving the door open for him behind her.

Bull, however, didn’t follow straight away. Instead, he sighed and looked about the poorly defined room around him, before he swiped a hand over his face and swallowed hard.

More and more he was forming a theory about the world he was in, and more and more he was developing a growing distaste for what he found.

He was pretty sure, for example, that he was stuck in the same trap that the Inquisitor was, and had a growing suspicion that Solas hadn’t been entirely truthful about the nature of the exercise that he was expected to perform. The dreams he’d found himself in so far had felt less like dream and more like  _ memory _ , and that these memories had been shaping moments for the Inquisitor in some way.

What was Bull supposed to see? What was he supposed to find? Why had the halla let  _ Bull _ past, Bull, the self-proclaimed liar and spy, but not Solas, who was someone that the Inquisitor actively sought for counsel when she was worried or upset? Why, of all the people that the Inquisitor should have trusted, did she trust the one person she had said herself that it was unwise to do so? Why was Bull awarded this glimpse into the Inquisitor’s past, when surely she had to know that he was the one who could bring the most damage to her with his position in both qunari society and as a mercenary for hire in Orlais?

What exactly had the potion been in the Inquisitor’s wine glass, and just how, exactly, was Bull supposed to break its’ hold so he could free not only her, but himself as well?

One thing was certain in all this, however - Even if he never found answers to the above questions, Bull was never going to let Solas lead him blindly into anything like this again. And in the meantime, he was going to get out of this shithole of a dream, help the Boss, and probably punch Solas in the face for being an absolute  _ dick _ once he was out.

The Boss screamed.

Bull swore, loudly, then bolted out the door.

\---

The door took Bull straight from inn room to forest, though he didn’t stop to process the sudden shift as he ran, instead he ducked and weaved around trees in the direction that the Inquisitor’s shrill scream had come from. He didn’t stop to think how he could tell the direction, he just ran - ignoring the sweat on his brow and the throbbing of his ankle and the fact that he still,  _ still _ , didn’t have a weapon.

The trees around him were tall, light-obscuring things, but he could still see almost perfectly in the dark. If he’d been thinking on that it probably would have unnerved him, but as it was, any advantage was a good advantage and he’d take what he could get as he bolted past tall conifers and pines and deeper into the wooded areas. Ahead, there was a shape moving through the trees, small and glowing faintly blue as it slowly stalked towards something currently obscured by an outcropping of rock. Bull pushed faster as the thing disappeared behind the rock, ignoring the protests from his ankle, and also the ones from the voice of reason inside him that was saying what he was doing was very  _ stupid. _

He ducked behind the rock when he reached it, rather than burst in on a situation he had no information on, and very carefully looked around it to take stock.

At first, all he saw was blood - bright red splatters of the stuff all over the trees and dirt near the outcropping, staining everything a horrific rusty red. Then, as his mind moved past the shock of it, he saw Revas not too far from where he was hiding.

Or, more accurately, he saw what was left of Revas.

The elf was no longer attractive. Empty green eyes stared out at the world from a dead face contorted into a last expression of agony and horror. He’d been torn open, and he’d had one leg nearly pulled from his body, and the rest of him had been bitten and gnawed on until it was barely recognisable as once being humanoid. There were rings of ice and ash around him, and the dead body of a wolf that was ragged and bone-thin.

Other wolves were in the clearing as well. Bright-eyed and underfed, they were loosely ringed around the carcass and were closing slowly in on where the Boss stood, trembling in horror at what she was seeing.

_ Oh really, _ said a voice,  _ You should just give in. _

The voice was slow as a glacier and twice as cold. Deep and resonant and flat, it made the hairs on the back of Bull’s neck stand on end, even as he searched around for the source.

A small, hunched creature was standing near one of the wolves, wickedly crooked hands poking out from under ragged robes, bare feet standing in one of the many blood splatters like there was nothing there. It was an indistinct grey, but had a slight blue sheen emanating from around it that made it difficult to look at for very long, and it’s very presence screamed apathy to the heavens.

_ It wouldn’t hurt, you know, _ the demon said as it shuffled towards where the Boss was staring desperately around herself, trying to keep all of the wolves in her peripheral vision,  _ And honestly, you can fight now, waste all that time and energy and then die, or you can just put down those daggers and rest. Let the wolves sate their hunger on your bones. _

Bull reached slowly down to his feet and tugged a hefty rock out of the ground, before straightening and looking back at the wolves and demon, taking careful aim.

“I will  _ never _ give in to you.” The Boss snarled, backing up as she spoke, until her back was nearly pressed against the rocky outcrop.

_ Why bother fighting? _ The demon asked,  _ Why bother with pain and suffering? Your friend couldn’t fight them off, and he had magic at his fingertips. You, my dear, are just a girl with a knife. You will never be more than that - and you will always be merely the girl from the Alienage and never Dalish true. _

The Boss stiffened, before her jaw set and she snarled at the demon in front of her. “I am  _ dalish. _ ”

_ Then why did Revas never call you by your name? _

“Because he was an asshole!” Bull shouted, and threw his rock.

The rock spiralled through the air, and the demon turned to watch it as it flew towards it. It took a half step back, almost like it was surprised, and the rock thudded into the ground a few feet in front of it.

It had been a shit throw, but it had been enough that the Boss had gathered herself in the demon’s moment of surprise and she lunged forward, daggers out and flashing, straight at the demon.

It let out a bloodcurdling shriek, leaping up and away, and the wolves lunged forward towards Bull. He swore and leapt out from behind the rock, ducking under one wolf and grabbing another as it tried to latch onto his arm, throwing it aside. There was a crunch when its back hit a tree and it fell down, dead.

The Boss ducked around Bull, burying her blade into the skull of a wolf that had been just about to leap at him, and from there, the battle song called Bull and he lost track of individual movements into the steady beat of  _ pivot, twist, punch, grab, throw, _ aware every moment of the small form next to him dancing through the fray.

Bull had never wondered at how well he and the Boss fought together, and he didn’t start now, instead he focused on keeping the wolves off her back as she drove closer and closer to the demon that was now trying to spit ice at the two of them.

Teeth latched onto Bull’s arm in a sudden burst of pain. He didn’t stop to think, instead he spun and slammed himself into the nearest tree, the wolf that was on him giving a high-pitched yelp as it died and tumbled to the ground. Another wolf, however, took the opening this provided and leapt onto Bull’s back. He roared and reached behind himself to grab it, even as its’ claws and teeth dug into him. The Inquisitor looked behind herself, he snarled at her.

“Kill the fucking  _ demon _ , Boss!”

She didn’t need to be told twice. She turned back, just as the demon launched a pointed ice crystal at her. She dodged, but not entirely, the crystal burying itself into her shoulder as she darted forward and leapt, both blades flashing downwards and burying to the hilt into the despair demon’s head. It screeched, once, then exploded outwards into stinking miasma that coated the Inquisitor and splattered over Bull.

He yanked the wolf off his back and threw it to the ground. It yelped and fled, tail tucked between it’s legs.

His ankle decided it had had enough abuse for one day and gave out, and as he fell into a sitting position, all of his bruises and hurts became apparent to him in a rush of pain that left him swearing.

The Boss turned from where she had been staring at the remnants of the demon and walked over to him, crouching down and reaching a hand to his face, gently touching his cheek.

“Are you alright, Bull?”

“Meat shield.” He said, grinning at her, “Isn’t that what you hired me for?”

She smiled at him, and let out a little huff of a laugh, “Both times.”

Then she did something that caught Bull completely off guard. She leant forward and kissed his forehead. “Thank you,” She said quietly, pulling away and looking to the side.

He looked at her, smirked and said nothing.

She rocked back onto her heels. “That was a  _ terrible _ throw, though.”

“Come on, Boss. No depth perception.”

She laughed, “You missed him by about four feet!”

“Tends to happen when you have no depth perception.”

She rested her hand on his leg. “There’s more of me out there, Bull. I don’t know how much, but it’s getting clearer.” She sighed, “Whatever you’re doing, it’s working.”

“I’m not doing much, just stabbing in the dark and helping as much as I can if you need it.”

“You’ll figure this out.” Kalasin said quietly, “You’re the only person I’d trust to do this.”

She faded like mist in front of him, and Bull was left in the forest, the word “Why?” Half-formed upon his lips.


	4. Chapter 4

Bull let out a hiss of air as the world shifted again – not from surprise, no, but from the sudden biting cold of the wind blowing down from the mountain above him. There were fresh, powdered drifts of snow piled about, that the wind played with – tossing it into the air and sending it in all directions to glitter in the sun like wet dust.

“Shit,” He said.

It wasn’t that the mountains around him were somewhere he hadn’t been – oh no, he knew exactly where he was – it was more the last time he’d seen them, he’d seen one coming down on top of the Herald, and a monster of a dragon just barely escaping the avalanche that the Boss had pulled down on herself, darkspawn master safely tucked between its mighty claws.

It wasn’t a place he was particularly fond of, one could say.

But they were different than when he’d last seen them, even barring landslides and dragons and shitty decisions made by elves that should damn well know better. Last time, the small village to his left had been half-converted to a military stronghold and the temple above him had been rubble.

Bull had arrived at Haven a little too late to see the building that stood tall halfway up the mountain side, and now as he looked at it, fully done up in the decadence that hallmarked Orlesian design, he found that he was a little less than impressed. Sure, the banners were nice, fluttering as they were from every spire and parapet, and the streamers were kind of pretty, the way they danced in the snow gusts, but it was all so damn over the top that it lost any of the charm it could have had.

Bull looked up at it from where he stood at the bottom of the mountain.

Then he swore again, stretched out his neck and started to walk.

“Temple of Sacred Ashes,” He said to himself, “This is going to get interesting.”

Before Bull had even gone a handful of steps, a sharp, furtive movement caught his attention. He looked to his left, into a forest of strangely generic redwoods and pines and met the disturbingly familiar hazel eyes of the Inquisitor. Disturbingly familiar, because they were set into the face of a halla – snow white and slender, it nickered gently at him before lowering its’ head to the snow-covered ground and nosing at the drifts. Golden horns spiralled back from its’ head in the shape of the vallaslin that normally swept over the Inquisitor’s cheekbones.

“That wasn’t a _dare_ ,” Bull said.

The halla looked up at him, eyes large and bright, before it took a limping step towards him. Bull reached out carefully and the creature pressed its’ face into his hand, breath panting out in warm, foggy mists against his chest.

The world stilled for a moment between them, sound faded away to nothing, even the cold on Bull’s skin felt lessened by the soft, snorting breaths that the halla took.

“I’ll get you out,” He told it quietly.

 The halla blinked slowly at him, before a wolf brayed somewhere nearby and its’ head jerked up and around somehow managing to avoid gutting Bull on its’ horns in the process. Another wolf gave a rolling howl that echoed off the snow about them, sending chills up Bull’s spine as the sound echoed through the hills and into his very bones. The halla reared and shrieked. Turning on its back hooves, it bolted up the path, kicking up snow in its passage and leaving Bull in a swirling cloud of ice. Wolves surged out of the bush around it, five slavering monsters, one made of flame, another lightning, another ice; one of smoke and mirrors and the final – clockwork spiders. All had too many eyes and too many fangs, and as Bull watched, fire and ice shrieked and writhed, leaping up into the air and in on themselves to fall away into ash and water. The others ignored their companions, still surging forwards, chasing after the bolting halla that was already near impossible to see against the snow.

When Bull was able to move again, he found himself alone, on a cold, bleak mountainside, surrounded by silent air and snow that somehow wasn’t wet.

“ _Five?”_  He demanded of no-one, throwing his hands up and noticing with dim surprise that his collarbone no longer hurt, “Five _demons_? Shit, Boss, you couldn’t have done this by _half_ , could you?”

He returned his attention to trudging up the mountainside.

* * *

Bull was muttering to himself about stupid dreams that wouldn’t put him any closer to his destination than at the bottom of a _fucking mountain_ when he turned a corner and found the Temple of Sacred Ashes spread out before him.

It was both less and more impressive than he’d pictured. An immense, gothic cathedral, it was one of the more imposing pieces of architecture Bull had seen since coming south, but it was also not all that much at all when he compared it to some of the monoliths of Tevinter, or even the high temples of Koslun back home.

It was impressive for _Ferelden,_ Bull compromised, as he made his way to the small ring of buildings that stood just outside the temple proper, refusing to acknowledge that this place wasn’t supposed to exist anymore, that even _Haven_ didn’t exist anymore, brought down in a wave of fire and ice that was a direct contrast to the peace and tranquillity of the frozen river below him and the stone huts with their brightly decorated awnings. From his vantage point he could see the Haven chantry, perched like a child in the arms of the greater temple above it, and he could see just how, once, this armpit corner of the world had actually been somewhat beautiful.

“Come on, Rabbit,” Said a voice just beyond a stone wall that marked the boundary of one of the small houses on the way to the main temple, “Show me your tail and I’ll make sure you have a good time of it.”

Kalasin stepped out from behind the stone wall; cropped hair shoved messily behind her ear, the red covered into ashy black with fireplace soot in a trick Bull had seen her do many times before. She was being followed by a human in a low-cost mercenary’s armour – plain, no ornamentation, crude pig iron rather than steel – a human who was non-descript but still somehow _ugly_ at the same time, shadow face stretched into a caricature of what a human should be, shifting slightly when Bull tried to get a read on him, different whenever Bull glanced away and back.

Now, he was tall and fat, brown hair and grey eyes, then he was short and wiry, with ghost white skin and twitchy hands.

_One of those._

Kalasin didn’t remember the man, it was obvious, but she remembered the _idea_ of him – a man who cornered her where he could and told her she’d be prettier if she smiled.

She had a basket at her hip, full of fresh apples that shone in the midday sun, and her bare feet ducked out every so often from under the full skirt that was tied to her waist. Gooseflesh marked her bare arms, but Bull had a feeling that the shiver that ran over her wasn’t entirely just to do with the cold.

Her lips pressed into a tight grimace, Kalasin was very obviously trying to ignore the man following her as she made her way towards the temple.

Asshole reached out, grabbed her arm, span her around. “I’m _talking_ to you, Rabbit!”

 _And there’s the mistake that breaks the horse’s back,_ Bull thought, folding his arms and settling his weight onto one hip in order to watch.

Apples spilt across snow. The man didn’t have time to react as Kalasin’s hand snapped out and twisted about the man’s wrist, thumb jamming into the soft flesh just beneath his palm. He yelled, trying to recoil as she latched on and pressed her thumb in tighter, the arm he’d grabbed now free to reach into her skirt and pull a dagger to wedge under his chin.

“Not in the mood, Human.”

Bull’s smirk faded into a faint frown at how damn _bitter_ the Boss had sounded then – a far cry from her usual too-polite self – even as his arms came loose from their fold to settle at his sides.

The dagger moved, to somewhere on the man that was much more intimate than his throat. “Threaten me or anyone else like that again; I’ll make sure you have nothing left to threaten her with.”

The man seemed to lose all his bravery at once as his hips shifted backward from the blade.

Kalasin gave him a flat look, “Have I made myself understood?”

“Sure,” The man got out, somewhat more high-pitched than he should have been, “Whatever you say.”

She let the man go. He stumbled backwards and away from the small elf and her skirts and her biting steel.

As soon as he was gone, the fight seemed to fade from Kalasin. Her shoulders slumped, the dagger disappeared and she bent to pick up her basket from where it had fallen when he grabbed her.

“Asshole, wasn’t he?”

She jumped and whirled, dagger in her hand again in an instant. Bull sighed and bent down, picking up one of her apples and holding it out to her. She ignored that and glared at him instead, blade still between them like a kiss from a snake.

Bull bent down, picked up another apple and held this one out to her as well.

“What are you doing?”

“Can you take one of these? I don’t have any more hands.”

She watched him, warily for a moment, before she tucked the dagger away and gingerly reached out to take the fruit. Once he had passed it over to her, she snatched her hand away like it was burnt, putting the fruit back into her basket and glaring warily at him.

Bull bent down and picked up another, and another. He felt her confusion as she watched him, caught in her stiff shoulders and tense spine, in the way her eyes darted between his hands, his face and his feet, waiting for some sort of blow to fall.

He tipped the apples he was holding into her basket.

“I don’t need any help,” She hedged at last, taking a small step away from him.

Bull bent down to pick up another piece of fruit. Her hand got there first, snatching it out from under him. He shrugged, reached for another.

“I know.”

She beat him to that one, too, shooting him with a poisonous glare. “I won’t give you anything for helping me, either.”

His hand landed on an apple, then hers on his. She jerked backwards, like his skin had been poker hot.

He ignored that, just put the apple he was holding in her basket.

She hesitated for a long moment. Then she scowled. “Fine, do what you want, qunari.”

“That’s what I was gonna do.” He picked up another piece of fruit.

She glared at him.

They worked together in silence, grabbing the fallen fruit, and when they were all in the basket again, Bull stood and turned, shoving his fingers into his belt. He started to walk away, counting down his steps in his head until –

“That’s it?”

He turned, back to where she was glaring after him. He smirked at her, “That’s what?”

“No _comment?_ ” She demanded, hand not holding the basket coming to her hip, confusion and distrust in her eyes, “No request for a _reward_?”

“Nope,” He kept walking backwards as he spoke, “Just giving you a hand, no strings.”

Her expression faltered a little.

He grinned, gave her a little wave, “See you.” He turned back towards the path up the temple.

_And three… two…_

 There was a frustrated shuffle of feet on snow behind him.

… _One_.

“Wait!”

 Bull slowed just enough that the elf could fall into step beside him, then he leaned down casually and took the basket of apples from her hands. “Where are you headed?” He asked as she frowned and reached for her basket, expression deepening as he kept it out of her reach.

“The temple – would you give that back? I can carry it!”

“Not saying you can’t,” Bull told her, dodging another of her attempts to snatch it away, “But wouldn’t you rather someone else did?”

She blinked up at him; lips almost, _almost_ pulled into a pout, then sighed, looking away. “Do as you like.”

Bull settled the basket more comfortably on his hip, “Always do.”

Together, the two of them began walking towards the imposing stone structure before them.

One thing that Bull knew he had over the Inquisitor was always that he was more patient than she was. She was intelligent, quick-thinking, in many ways his equal and in some ways his better (she could move so damn fast that sometimes he had difficulty keeping up, and her grasp of the leadership of armies was something that worked in numbers beyond what he was capable of) but he knew he was more experienced than her, knew that he could walk beside her in complete silence until she started getting an itch under her skin, until that streak of hot impatience would work its way to the surface from wherever she buried it. It was easy to make the Inquisitor uncomfortable enough to talk – always had been.

All Bull had to do was wait.

And he was a patient man.

“I don’t trust you,” She spat, eventually, with that uncomfortable tinge in her voice that meant his patience was getting to her, that the inscrutability he practiced was making her twitch, “I’m not sure what you’re up to, but I know it’s something.”

Bull shrugged, “I don’t trust me much either,” He said, just to push her buttons, to _really_ get that bee in her bonnet, “I’ve always got a plan up my… well, I don’t _have_ sleeves – but I’ve always got some sort of plan in the works that usually catches the person they’re for off guard.” He rolled his shoulders, “Probably best not to trust someone like me at all – we’ll make you like us, then we’ll find a way to catch you with your pants down, and it’s always to our own advantage.”

The Inquisitor glared at him, puzzlement and annoyance warring over her features before she finally folded her arms across her chest and said in a huff, “You are _bizarre._ ”

“Nah, I’m just not matching your expectations.” Bull shifted the weight of the basket on his hip, “I’m a qunari who doesn’t behave like a qunari, a mercenary who doesn’t want to get you between his sheets as soon as he sees you, who’s kind instead of a bully, who knows more than three words of common to string together and who goes out of his way to help you, even when you’ve made it damn obvious you don’t really want to be helped.” He peered down at her, “You don’t know what to make of me and it’s got you on edge. You know there’s a game because of course there is, but you haven’t stopped to think about what that game could be. You don’t know what box to put me into in your head and, surprisingly, that _pisses you off._ ”

“Why are you helping me?”

Bull didn’t miss a step, “I don’t know, really,” He said, “Maybe it’s because I want to fuck you.”

She stopped, spluttering. Bull could feel the anger building in her like a wave, so he decided to cut it off before it could break.

“I’m _not going to_ ,” he said, “Not because I don’t want to but more because helping someone just for payment like that is a real shitty thing to do. Also, _you_ don’t want to have sex with anyone right now, and I’ve got too many conflicting issues to add another one into the list. Too many people to please and I start losing track.” He shrugged again, “Don’t know why I’m even telling you this – guess I’ve just reached the end of my bullshit tolerance for today and I’ve always had a thing for redheads.”

Her mouth opened angrily, then she paused, head tilting to the side as puzzlement entered her expression.

Bull caught his mistake. Coughed. “Your hair,” He said, pointing, “The roots are showing through the ash.” The lie was smooth enough that he could tell she bought it, even as he cleared his throat, “It’s a shame because it seems like your hair’d be a pretty colour, normally.”

He wasn’t lying about that, at least. The Boss’ hair _was_ beautiful. It had been one of the very first things he’d noticed about her – thick and red as a sunset, it could look like fire when the light hit it just right, made him want to run his fingers through it and pull her head back, want to find out if it was really as soft as it looked in the dawn sunlight of their makeshift Hinterlands campsites.

But he _also_ hadn’t been lying that he didn’t need his alliances muddied even further than they were – that he’d definitely placed the Inquisitor strictly into the category of the ‘hands-off’ type of friend.

“I don’t know whether to laugh at you or run screaming for the hills,” The Boss sighed, folding her hands in front of her as she spoke.

“I get that reaction a lot.”

“It’s like you’ve thrown the script out the window and I’ve only half the pages left.”

“I find people are more honest when they’re off-balance,” Bull told her, “You get truer reactions if you don’t give ‘em time to react.”

She smiled wanly at him and he grinned back, satisfied that he’d shocked her into a mood where she was likely to let him hang around, “Why do you need my true reactions, then?”

“Well – ” He drew out the word, taking a step forward and turning so he could walk backwards and look at her, “You’re a spy with coal in your hair and powders over your vallaslin – why wouldn’t I want your true reactions?”

“Whereas _you’re_ a spy who wears half his intentions on his sleeve to hide the fact that he’s a spy.”

“Still don’t have sleeves,” Bull pointed out, “Also I’m not hiding the fact I’m a spy.”

“Not hiding, no,” Kalasin said, “But you _are_ hoping I’ll forget. Don’t think I’ve done that even for a moment, The Iron Bull.”

“I think I like the fact you think about me,” Bull told her, very tempted to ask this version of Kalasin’s dream self how she knew his name, even though he hadn’t told her what it was.

* * *

They walked up the mountain side, bickering back and forth as they approached the Temple of Sacred Ashes. In Kalasin’s memory, it loomed huge and impressive over them, cold and stark grey stone offset by ribbons and flowers and people in impossible finery. Faceless holy mothers stood in red and white and gilt, Tranquil calmly kept house, brands standing out twisted and angry red on their foreheads. The devout lined the parapets and pews, a chant sung in a thousand voices rolled deep and resonant and soft as a sigh off the walls. It was beautiful, but in a way that felt foreign and alien to Bull, like a play spoken in a language he didn’t understand.

Bull saw a world of devout faith, a world that made the qunari in him shudder, even as other parts of him started taking notes. There was a sigh from his elbow and he looked down to see Kalasin watching the people around her, expression slightly uncomfortable like someone who’d walked into a room where they felt they didn’t belong. He reached down and gave her shoulder a squeeze, and she shot him a grateful look in reply.

“Come on,” She said, “Kitchen’s this way.”

She led him through the main hall to a side passage that was tucked away behind a tapestry. Bull followed, ignoring the prickling feeling that was growing at the back of his neck, the one that came from the fact _he_ wasn’t the one being watched.

Instead, the whispers that chased the two of them down the hallway were less to do with the hulking oxman who made nobles nervous, but more laughing commentary about the luck of a broken-nosed rabbit who walked among her betters.

Kalasin held her chin high, looking all the world like she couldn’t even hear the whispers that followed them, but the tenseness of her shoulders belied the fact that more than one snide barb was hitting its’ mark.

“You’re worth fifty of them,” Bull said under his breath as they walked.

“You don’t know me,” She shot back.

He didn’t respond, didn’t tell her that he _did_ know her - quick and clever and thoughtful; polite even when being polite was painful. Witty, when she needed to be, helpful when it was called for. Scathing and ironic as a last resort, fiery, when something found a way to stroke her temper, soft when she could afford to be gentle. A contradiction of a person worth more than all the nobility of Orlais combined.

His friend.

He fell quiet beside her, said nothing when she took the apples from him and pushed open a door he hadn’t even noticed until she’d stopped in front of it. Together, they stepped into the kitchens.

“You’re late, Rabbit.”

A fat cook stood by the roasting fire, controlling the speed at which two dogs ran, working the spit on which a giant suckling pig slowly turned.

“Apologies,” Kalasin said quietly, setting her basket down on the long table that ran the length of the room, “I was held up.”

“Pig might have had to go out without a proper sauce, you’d been any later.”

“I know,” Kalasin said, picking up a knife from a small block on the work table and setting about peeling the apples.

“Would’ve been a right mess.” The cook continued, her eyes meeting Kalasin’s face and daring her to react.

Bull put his hand on one of the copper pots next to the table, and swore, jerking back when static leapt to his fingers. No-one looked at him, even as his horns caught against another pan, making a mighty crash.

“Getting real sick of this convenient invisibility,” He muttered, and was ignored.

A serving hand, another human in serving clothes, bouncy blonde hair tied back with a blue cloth ribbon, frowned at Kalasin. “Why you late, then?” She asked, as she picked up one of the apple peels Kalasin was making and started to nibble on it, “Had a quick tumble by the looks of the dirt on your dress. Guess it goes without saying though, what’s said about _rabbits.”_

Kalasin’s hand tensed on the knife she was holding, as a low rumble of thunder split through the air, “I fell over. The apples spilt.”

“Fell over right on to someone’s cock, I think.”

The apple hit the other girl before she could have realised it’d been thrown. It exploded into a juicy, pulpy mass, covering the side of her face and thickly dripping from her hair, the beautiful blonde curls now a limp mess.

The girl shrieked, leaping off her stool and flying at Kalasin, nails out, thin skirts whipping about her legs.

 _“My hair!_ ” She shrieked as she lashed out a hand, catching Kalasin across the cheek and leaving a long, bleeding trail, “ _There’s apple in my_ hair!”

Bull tried to catch the girl, to get her off from where Kalasin had stood, arms up to defend herself, stool she’d been sitting on knocked backwards in her haste, but his hand went straight through the blonde’s waist as she rained slaps down on the Boss’ arms.

The boss didn’t try to fight back; instead, she took the abuse, eyes glinting in barely controlled fury, clear like the air before a thunderstorm. She didn’t say anything as she kept her arms up to ward off the blows, even as the other girl shrieked her fury. The knife she’d been using to peel the apples was on the table, hilt still shining wetly in the firelight with the same juice that was dripping from the girl’s hair.

“Enough!” Shouted the cook by the fire, as she pushed her way to her feet, “Rabbit, you’re to leave the kitchen for your stirring and – _oh by the Maker, Marie, it’s only a little apple_ – when the meal is done, you’ll report to me for your discipline.”

The girl stopped slapping at Kalasin’s arms, falling back with anger high in her cheeks and apple dripping from her forehead. For her part, the Boss regarded the people in the kitchen coolly, arms falling back to her sides, before stiff-backed and proud she stalked from the kitchen.

Bull followed her.

* * *

“Stupid, stupid, _stupid_!” Bull followed the sound of Kalasin’s anger around the corner of the passageway to where she was standing in the hall, fists in her hair, anguish on her face, “That was _stupid_ , Kal! By the creators, why would you respond to a little bit of ribbing like that?” She let out an exasperated cry, hand coming out of her hair to strike the wall.

“Hey,” Bull called, hurrying forward, “Hey!”

The Boss made a sound that was frustration and disgust as she whirred on him, “Don’t you have _anything_ better to do with your time than annoy me?”

“Shit, Boss! What the _fuck_ are you doing?” He grabbed the hand she swung at him, holding it in place as she glared. Her eyes were filled with tears.

“ _Why_ can’t you people just leave me alone? Isn’t it enough that I’m not good enough to be an elf so the Keeper sent me _here_? Why do you people have to rub it in as well?” She let out another sound, trying futilely to get her hand back, “Let me _go!_ ”

“Hey, shit, Boss, calm down okay, and talk to –”

“Oh yes, that’s right, tell me to calm down, what does it matter to you what I’m feeling as long as it doesn’t show?” She snarled at him, “Everyone _always tells me to calm down._ You, Cassandra, Leliana! Be the Inquisitor, be the herald of a religion you don’t believe in. Be _perfect_ , be _regal_ , be _calm._ Fuck your calm, The Iron Bull!”

“Hey, _hey,_ I’m only trying to help here, Kal! What that girl said back there was _shit_ , okay, but you don’t need to –”

“Oh, by Fen’harel’s _hairy arsehole_ don’t tell me what I need to _do!_ ”

Lighting cracked between them. Bull let go of her hand and leapt back, surprised. She glared at him, panting, tears making wet trails down her face, knuckles bleeding from where she struck the wall.

And behind her, the shadows grew into something big, something _monstrous_ with too many eyes and shiny black scales, lightning crackling over it in waves.

“Boss – behind you – shit!”

The Pride demon rested its hand on Kalasin’s shoulder, mouth pulling back into a grin with far too many teeth. Kalasin stiffened, looking at Bull in shock before she looked back at the creature looming over her, at the way its lightning crawled over her skin.

_My, you’re a prideful one, aren’t you, dear?_

Bull snarled, stepping forward to try and get Kal away from the demon, but another bolt of lightning struck before him, keeping him back.

The creature reached forward with its other hand, cupping Kalasin’s cheek, wiping away the tears that trickled down her face. _But you’re_ hurting _, my little elvhen child, you’re hurting in so many ways. And you’re so very right to hurt._

The monster’s voice was like thunder rolling over an open plain, but still feminine somehow, sweet and dark like a symphony of drums. A shudder ran down Bull’s spine as Kalasin leaned into the creature’s hand.

Then, Bull saw it – a faint overlay over the creature, sheer as dragonfly wings to him, the image of a tall, fair elf, with golden hair that cascaded down her back in a silken waterfall, clothing fine as gossamer over a slender body, eyes the deep blue of calm water. The illusion was beautiful and terrible, tall as a god and waif-like as a dancer.

_You know what you do next, Child. After this, hurting as badly as you are you run until you hear the voice that changes your life. Makes you open a door against your gut instinct, sets you apart from everyone around you._

The beast looked over Kalasin’s head at Bull, and _smirked_.

Bastard.

_My question to you, Child, is this – why should you open the door?_

“Kal –”

Lightning shot at Bull and struck him squarely in the chest, sending him off his feet and into the wall behind him. With a grunt of pain, he forced himself to stagger to his feet once more.

The demon’s hand crept up the side of the Boss’ face until it was resting in her hair, the ash fading and leaving the bright red that Bull loved so much to look at. _Why should you even lift a finger?_

“Boss!” Bull tried again, “Get away from it!”

Kalasin looked over her shoulder at him, and Bull’s breath caught in his throat. Instead of the minimal vallaslin that he was so used to seeing on her face, thick vines of tattoos crept all over her features, moving as Bull watched to take up more room, twisting and knotting over each other, skirting her jaw and crawling down her neck. They were a living network, dark and thick and spreading as he watched, as the demon continued to caress Kalasin’s hair and skin.

 _Ignore him, Child,_ said the demon, _He is not of the People like you are._ It gently caught the side of Kalasin’s face and tugged her attention back.

The wall next to the demon shifted, revealing a tall door made of a material like marble, polished and white, but still plain and unornamented. The kind of door one might find in the basement of a castle that led to a treasury or the office of someone with too much self-importance and not nearly enough rank to back it up. Red light crackled out from under and around it, a hazy miasma filled the air in a way that Bull knew and intimately associated with red lyrium.

A cry of pain sounded from the room beyond the doorway, and Kalasin looked at it in fear and disgust.

 _Why should you help the little human beyond the door?_ Asked the demon, _She isn’t worth the glory of the people I can promise you._

Kalasin looked at the door again, doubt flickering across her eyes. “She’s in pain, we need to help her.”

_What has she done to deserve your help?_

The vallaslin had crawled its way down the Boss’ arms, now, thick ropey vines that made Bull sick just to look at. They were changing colours very slowly, he noticed, going from deep, dark brown to a bluish white – the colour of electricity before it kills.

“Boss, please, just get away from it!”

Whether he was talking about the door or the demon or both, Bull didn’t actually know. He charged at the demon, which arched an eye-ridge at him, one hand coming off Kalasin’s shoulder to point at him. Lightning whipped from it in an arc that struck him square in the chest and sent him crashing back into the wall behind him.

It hurt.

A lot.

Gasping, hand coming up to the burn on his chest, Bull tried to get to his feet again, only to find that his legs had decided to fail him, in the wake of the agony that blazed down his spine. He growled deep in the back of his throat at the demon, which smiled with satisfaction and turned back to Kalasin.

The Boss, however, was looking at Bull.

She pulled herself away from the demon, like someone trying to move through water. She took a step towards him, reached out a hand. “Bull –”

“You okay?”

She took another step, shuddered all over and fell on the ground next to him, small, freckled hands coming up to rest gingerly over the long burn that the lightning whip had left. He watched her hands, looked at her slender fingers and the half-moons of her nails. Wondered what her freckles would taste like in some corner of his mind as he wrenched his eyes up to meet her gaze. The fog was clearing from her eyes, the vallaslin around them fading back to its’ normal colour.

 _Leave him_ , said the demon behind her, the overlay it was wearing stuttering a little as it’s spell on Kalasin started to crack. _He is nothing, of no consequence, just like the rest._

“Can you believe this guy, Boss?” Bull said with a weak grin that fell to a frown when Kalasin shrugged in return. Her eyes were dark and sad.

 _Of course someone like him would be so quick to judge,_ said the demon, _to show such a complete failure to_ understand.

Kalasin’s hand twitched, then stilled on Bull’s chest.

“Boss?”

 _That name is his own private joke, you know_ , the demon commented, sounding almost bored, _He’s just like all the others. Looks at you and sees just an elf, just an insignificant little rabbit to use for his own ends._

Kalasin gave a full-body shudder.

_Should I tell her what the nickname means, Hissrad, or should you?_

“What does she mean, Bull?” The Boss’ voice cracked on his name, even as he winced and tried to get on his feet again.

“It was a joke,” He said quietly, somehow not able to meet Kalasin’s eye, “A joke that stopped being a joke a long time ago.”

_Bas._

The demon said it as Bull thought it, and cursed his own stupidity. A dumbass joke that had sprung up when he’d first met the little slip of an elf before him, before she’d become anywhere near important to him. Named for the way that she commanded without really meaning to, the way he gave her power over him without really giving her power at all. Made her a plaything, to an extent.

The stress in the word had always been subtle, something that only a qunari might pick, a pun which fell away quickly into actual respect for the elf in front of him, a nickname that had started in irony and made its way to truth.

 _He doesn’t care for you any more than he cares for anyone else,_ said the demon, _You know this, you know there’s not a soul in the world that cares about you more than for what they can get from you._

“Boss, you know that’s not true.”

The lines were thickening over her skin again, even as she looked up at him they resumed crawling over her face, shifting slowly from vines to lightning as he watched.

She backed away from him.

“Boss?”

“Sorry, Bull,” She said quietly, “You’re a spy.”

Bull’s heart dropped like a stone as he stared after the small elf turning back to the demon behind her.

“But you’re my friend,” Bull’s voice was barely there, a plaintive plea that Kalasin didn’t even seem to hear as she stepped back to the demon, lightning shooting from her feet with every step.

 _I can give you the pride of Arlathan,_ The demon cooed as Kalasin took its’ hand, _Of June, Mythal, Syliase, all of the Gods and their offspring since. You have made a wise choice._

Bull tried again to stand, struggled through the pain in his skin and back, swallowed around a frozen throat as he looked for anything he could throw, or something he could leap of the demon with. But there was nothing – nothing as the demon gathered Kalasin up in its’ arms, ran its’ hands possessively over her hair –

\- Screamed, in sudden, shrill pain as Kalasin slit its’ throat with the dagger she kept in her waistband.

“You should have remembered,” She spat at the demon that was now clawing away from her, clutching its throat as ichor spurted out, “I’m a spy, too.”

She moved, lightning spilling from her fingers as she struck again and again, dagger plunging into the demon over and over as it swelled and distorted, its’ illusion falling away into something scaled and hideous that dwarfed her as she attacked the back of its’ knees, its’ armpits, its’ underbelly, its’ still gushing throat.

Kalasin blazed white blue as the demon’s power spilled out of her, leaving seared tracks over Bull’s vision as he tried to keep up with the small elf’s movements.

He was spellbound, half upright as he found he couldn’t have looked away even if he wanted to.

Something queer was building in his gut as he watched, arousal, definitely, but also fierce, hot _pride_ , joyful in its’ exuberance, and something else, warm and buoyant and catching him fiercely by the throat.

The pride demon… shattered. There was no other word for it as the electricity in it exploded outwards. It cracked like a dropped vase, leaving Kalasin standing where it stood, drenched in ichor, skin pale from the effort, eyes bright and alive and breath catching into little pants that broke the low snarl she was making.

Bull stared at her for a long moment, then he very quietly said, “That’s hot.”

Kalasin staggered as if she had been struck, before she collapsed against the wall next to her, curling in on herself and shaking.

“…Boss?” With great effort, Bull forced himself to his feet, staggering over to where the poor elf was hiding her face. He slid down the wall next to her, gingerly placing his hand on her shoulder, “You okay?”

She burst out laughing.

It was loud, uncontrolled – the kind of laughter that brought tears down her muck-streaked face, the kind that made her double over and struggle to breathe, that brought a smile over Bull’s face, even as he dragged her to his side in a tight, one-armed hug. She buried herself into his side, still laughing, pressing her face into his chest as he looked down at the top of her head, as he rubbed his hand over her shaking shoulders, as she clutched him tighter around the middle and held on.

He let her laugh, and when the laughter turned to sobs he let her cry, too, hand sneaking into her hair and pushing it away from her face, letting his breathing become a low, soothing rumble as he pulled her closer to him.

“Don’t change, Bull,” She said, eventually, in a tearstained voice, through shaking shoulders and bright eyes, “Don’t you dare ever change.”

He ruffled her hair, ignoring how it made his hand sticky with quickly-fading demon ichor, “I hadn’t planned to, Boss.”

It was then he noticed that the door was still there - as Kalasin leant against his arm, warm and breathless and a little too comforting – the one that the demon had summoned, with the red lightning still crawling underneath it.

Kalasin must have felt him stiffen because she looked up too, and gave a weary sigh when she caught what he was looking at. “Ah,” She said, “That.”

She said the word the same way someone might have said ‘death’ or ‘Corypheus.’

“Not a good door?”

“Honestly?” She said, biting her lip, “I have no clue. I know I go in there, but what happens on the other side is…” She vaguely waved her hand, “There’s nothing there until Cassandra is standing over me demanding answers.”

“So really not a good door, then.”

She gave him a watery smile, “I suppose you’re right, at that.”

She stood, offered him a hand. He let her pull him up, ignoring the burn through his back as he got his feet under him.

“What are you going to do?” He kept himself calm as he watched her walk towards the door, watched her put her hand on the cool marble.

She flicked a smile over her shoulder, “I’ve already done it,” She said, “I don’t think what I do here really matters.”

“Hindsight, though,” Bull said, leaning against the wall behind him as much for support as to look uncaring, “You have a chance to choose again. Go through the door or not? Was all the bullshit you’ve been through worth it?”

 _People only want you for what you can do for them_ , the demon had said. From Kal’s uncomfortable grimace, she was thinking that as well.

She frowned at him, crease in the centre of her brow making her freckles dance. He’d never noticed that before, the way her expressions made her face a living work of art, eyes sparkling, tattoos and nose and lips all poetry in motion. “I don’t know,” She admitted, “I don’t know if it’s worth it at all. What if it wasn’t me?”

“What do you mean?”

She shook her head, “It’s just something I’ve thought – what if it wasn’t me? It was a chance I was walking this way at all – it could have been anyone else and they’d be the head of the Inquisition now, thanks to a quirk of timing. What if it had been someone else here instead of me?”

“You’d be dead.”

Kalasin flinched at Bull’s blunt tone; he sighed and folded his arms across his chest. “I wouldn’t have met you,” He continued, “Someone else would take your place and maybe everything else stayed the same. But I wouldn’t have met you, and you wouldn’t be alive, so why shouldn’t it be you who does this?”

He’d expected the pain in her eyes but not the surprise, not the determination, not the pain that shot through _him_ at the thought of not meeting the small elf in front of him.

“Can’t have that,” Kalasin said quietly, “I don’t think I want to live in a world where I don’t meet my best friend.”

She pushed the door open, either ignoring or not hearing his sudden startled sound, and walked through.

Bull watched her go, but he didn’t follow.

It didn’t seem right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the fact I haven't updated -anything- in so long! My excuse is that I was working in China for 8 months and getting settled back home in Australia has been something of a trial. Also, it turns out if you take out my commute, I don't really write all that much because I get distracted by other things. So back home now, back writing on my daily commute, hopefully this leads to some more updates in the future.
> 
> At least two or three more chapters in this one - next one is nearly finished in terms of drafting, we'll see how long it takes me to get it up.


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